


Like Primary School

by disquisitemind



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Drabble, Gen, Post!Reichenbach, crack theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disquisitemind/pseuds/disquisitemind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been three years and Joan simply isn't HIS Joan anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Primary School

**Author's Note:**

> This has dialogue from the first episode in it.
> 
> This is not actually what I think is happening in the show, and Holmes is so out of character it hurts. 
> 
> If it is unclear (as it is only implied), the opening to Elementary is actually after Reichenbach, with Father Holmes using Sherlock's pretend addiction as an excuse for Sherlock and Watson's reconciliation. Mycra was the Domme leaving Sherlock's flat. Moriarty is, in turn, the reason that Sherlock left London.

It’s been three years.

Father has set up their old apartment, everything is gone. Everything is new. Televisions line the old living room walls. 

Their handcuffs are still on the ladder.

Mycra has left the room, her odour soaking into the floorboards by no consent of his own. She no doubt plans to reorganize the study, make sure that there are sheets in Joan’s room before she actually leaves to be the...attache to a minor government official. 

Joan will arrive soon. His body thrums with each pulse from the myriad cable stations, playing loud, being the static and calming tense to his nerves. They rewind everything that he has missed, every show, every weather report, every car. For three years.

Their soap opera plays, he notices. Her car has pulled up.

Should he change his shirt? Is this one suitable? Too classy? Too lame? Too...Mycra. He takes it off anyway, stuffing it in a drawer, hoping to have enough time to change before Joan-

Too late. Joan has arrived. He can hear the door creak open, the pad of her heel against wooden floors. 

“Hello?” He hears her call, no echo.

He lets the televisions run, memorizing their stopping points so that he may start again later. He doesn’t look at her. Not yet. He can’t.

“Excuse me, Mr.-” 

She doesn’t remember. Like Father said. She doesn’t remember.

“Sh-” He shuts everything off. Pacing. Pacing is good. Normal. 

What to say. What not to say. Is there anything to say?

“My name is Joan Watson. Your father hired me to be your sober companion. He told me he was going to e-mail you about me.” So soft-spoken. Not his Joan. “I’m here to make the transition from your rehab...experience to the routine of your everyday life as smooth as possible. I will be living with you for the next six weeks.” Still his. Excited when nervous. “Which means that I’ll be available to you twenty-four-seven.”

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“I-uh-” She doesn’t know what to do, her fingers don’t twitch, of course, compulsive swallow, affronted blink of eyes.

“I know what you’re thinking. The world is a cynical place and I must be a cynical man, thinking a woman like you would fall for a line like that. Thing is, it isn’t a line. So please hear me when I say this.” His Joan. “I have never loved anyone as I do you, right now, in this moment.” 

Her face reveals no signs of attraction. It didn’t the first time, so this should be no surprise, but there is no recognition in her eyes. He presses play, and she startles. Not his Joan. Not hardened yet. No war. 

He can see everything that is important to her in that purse. Keys, wallet, parking ticket, address book, phone. Nothing of color. All stylish and black. Nothing doodled upon or worn on the edges. New.

Not his.

He tosses the television remote aside.

“Spot on.” It should still impress her. It did the first time. “Sherlock Holmes.” Her hand is still firm, expectant of two pumps of the wrist, mechanical. “Please don’t get comfortable, we won’t be here long.” Shoes. He has to find shoes. Public places need shoes.

“Mr. Holmes, did your father tell me about you or not?” The whining.

“Ah. He e-mailed. Said you were to be some sort of Addict-Sitter.” Wrong.

“And he explained his conditions in respect to your sobriety?”

“If you mean his Threats to evict me from this, the shoddiest and the least renovated of the five, count them, five properties he owns in New York, then Yeah. He made his conditions quite clear. I use, I wind up on the street. I refuse your help, I wind up on the street. To my understanding, most sober companions are recovering addicts themselves, but, you’ve never had a problem with drugs or alcohol.” He doesn’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol, not now. It’s been six years at least. Not since she got him off them the first time. Moriarty took care of the rest.

“Your father told you.”

“Of course he did.” Father told enough to know that she didn’t wake up after the fall. That it took weeks. That Moriarty hadn’t been completely abolished. That when she woke she had no memory of any time together, of Mrs. Hudson, Mycra or Moran, of their chess games in the park, of the fencing classes they took together, of watching television together, of cleaning the house, of tending the bees, of solving a crime, of chasing a culprit. She didn’t remember life. He’d just have to reintroduce her.

There was a murder, red-haired thing, a perfect introductory case, something small, something to release the tension, something to show off.

He just had to find a shirt.


End file.
